It has been a while since last Industry Comment, apologies for that. We will be improving in the coming days and weeks.
After hundreds of articles being written about the 'Ipad' prior to Apple's launch of said product (which is free marketing worth millions for Apple, if not more), the product is here.
So what is the Ipad?
Well in short it is a super-sized Ipod Touch that is essentially an Apple store front for digital books, games, music, video and other services Apple can delivery over Itunes.
The product name is interesting given that there are several holders to the Ipad trademark around the World. From our limited research Siemens holds the trademark in the UK as well as the US, and Fujitsu launched in 2006 a mobile computer under the trademark Ipad. Lastly, Ipads.com is a news site (and registered trademark) for tabletish computers. Interesting.
Trademarks aside, we are not fully convinced by this product (yet). Apple has an impressive track record in driving products and changing industries, however, we don't think Apple is there yet with the Ipad. Here is why:
1. Too expensive for what it does. It starts at USD499 and the top range costs USD829 (with 3G and more storage). In comparison for 499 in the US you can pick up a 40" 1080p television, the most expensive Ipad costs the same as a 46" telly. PS3 retails for about USD350 and Xbox 360 goes for 199-299 depending on the SKU.
2. Little innovation in the touch screen interface. A huge problem with touch screen products is touch screen fatigue. Why not extend the touch screen interface to the edges of the Ipad where the user holds it. This way it would be possible to do some limited interactions without having point and touch the screen. For example, flip to album covers and books, adjust volume, browse photos, play music and so on. Another alternative would be to launch menus and sub-menus.
3. No camera. This was very surprising, and I thought they had learnt from not including a camera on the Ipod Touch. When Apple launched the Ipod Touch we commented the Ipod Touch should have had a camera, as the Iphone did. This was brushed aside since Apple viewed camera to be a feature for phones and not for Ipods. However, in our opinion the Ipad should include a camera to enable video conferencing (3G versions can do video calling on the go).
4. No support for Adobe's Flash, which is not surprising given that Apple opposes Flash. We note that this has not stopped Iphone/Ipod Touch from becoming popular.
5. Apparently it does not support multitasking. If this is correct we see this is a big downside to the Ipad. Users need to be able to listen to music whilst reading a book, looking at photos, using productivity tools (email, office applications) or just browsing the web. We have not tried the product out so we cannot confirm or deny the lack of multitasking. This will be a big let down.
6. Challenges with portable video players and storage. The cheapest version has 16GB of storage. This is fine for most music collections, questionable if users throw in photos to the mix. However, once you add 720p movies you will quickly run out of space. How much will a 720p full feature movie require of storage? Well it depends on compression and codecs, however, file size will be in gigabytes.
7. Given limited storage on the cheaper range (which is likely to be more of a mass market product) users will run into problems getting 720p content on the product. It would not be surprising if Apple is working on a cloud-based version of Itunes that can sync content libraries across devices. However pulling down a 720p movie over e.g. a 3G connection is optimistic at best, and, unless the user is on a unlimited data plan, very expensive. This leaves in-home sync over Wi-Fi or via docking, though this limits the potential as a mobile product.
8. Lack of wide-screen format support. This will lead to those nasty black areas on the screen.
We are sure that Apple will correct these and other issues, but for the time being we see less value in the product. Especially while we wait for more publishers to get on board....
